How did a small developer of graphics cards for gamers suddenly become the third most valuable firm on the planet? | John Naughton

By turning his computer chip-making company Nvidia into a vital component in the AI arms race, Jensen Huang has placed himself at the forefront of the biggest gold rush in tech history

A funny thing happened on our way to the future. It took place recently in a huge sports arena in San Jose, California, and was described by some wag as AI Woodstock". But whereas that original music festival had attendees who were mainly stoned on conventional narcotics, the 11,000 or so in San Jose were high on the Kool-Aid so lavishly provided by the tech industry.

They were gathered to hear a keynote address at a technology conference given by Jensen Huang, the founder of computer chip-maker Nvidia, who is now the Taylor Swift of Silicon Valley. Dressed in his customary leather jacket and white-soled trainers, he delivered a bravura 50-minute performance that recalled Steve Jobs in his heyday, though with slightly less slick delivery. The audience, likewise, recalled the fanboys who used to queue for hours to be allowed into Jobs's reality distortion field, except that the Huang fans were not as attentive to the cues he gave them to applaud.